Now Boaz, respect the question please.

benq asked, most sincerely...

>>Don't forget to tell the truth now!<<

Your history is there for all to see, from Boaz_David (8/1/05 - 25/6/08, then 5/1/09 (oops, overlap with Polycarp) and 18/1/09 - 2/2/09), through Polycarp (25/6/08 - 16/1/09), then a brief appearance as no_THIS_ismeBD, with five posts on 19/5/09, followed by your present incarnation, ALGOREisRICH, also started on 19/5/09.

There may be others, but your style is so unmistakable I think you would have been spotted by someone.

>> I was banned..for a whole year :) sin binned. I'm not sure exactly why...<<

So do tell, Boaz, which of your personae was banned? I must admit that this is the first I had heard of a ban on you - surely it wasn't the sin of simultaneous posting under two names, as that only happened once as far as I can tell, on 5/1/09.

Technically, of course, you repeated the sin between 11:18 on 19th and 06:47 on 20th, when the combination of no_THIS_ismeBD and ALGOREisRICH managed to fit in 25 posts, but since it was a once-off I doubt you should be penalized.

For the record, benq, Boaz used to occupy his time - particularly in his Boaz and Polycarp days - proselytizing like crazy. Which makes his remark...

>>Grateful has used the other thread as a proselytizing tool<<

...highly risible. Even those nicks were, by his own admission, based upon his somewhat unique take on religious issues.

So if you are serious about getting "a better handle on where you're coming from with this topic", and not just having a sideways chuckle at the level of debate on this thread, just be a little aware of the five-year history of whack-a-mozzie antics for which this chap is been justly notorious.

AGIR and So Is George W Bush

Wasn't going to post here until I read the following:

>> Would this thread have been started if Foxy had not done hers?

Unlikely. I did it in the interess of balance and fairness.
It also provides a way of expressing views which foxy could be intolerant of. >>

Balanced?

Christianity is the dominant religion in Australia. 70% of people claim to be Christian.

Islam is less than 10% of the population.

Balanced? Not even on the same playing field.

Fair?

Islam is continuously maligned because of it fundamentalist contingent. Therefore, Foxy was trying to bring fairness and if you, AGIR, were sincere you could've have started a thread about contributions by an equally marginalised religion, for example, Judaism. A religion often under attack for its Zionist element.

Christianity is neither marginalised nor maligned. Both our PM and Leader of the Opposition claim to be Christians. Our parliament opens with Christian ritual prayer.

Finally, your comments regarding Foxy are little more than slander. Claiming the one person on this forum who behaves with more of the values espoused by the NT by her genuine compassion and TOLERANCE than you or Runner or the like ever have expressed here is laughable. Under your pseudonyms from Boaz_david, Polycarp to date, you attack, malign any with a differing view point.

BTW since your return, I have been away too. I didn't expect to be back due to ill health. You would remember me as Fractelle. Unlike you I did not have to be outed by others as I explained in my early posts on my return the fact of my previous moniker.

One positive contribution of Australian Christians?

Foxy
Foxy
Foxy

I'm sure that the positive contributions of Australian Christians are too many to ennumerate. However, they are lately regularly eclipsed by the negative actions of the relatively few fundamentalist godbotherers, Islamophobes and kiddy fiddlers who spread fear and loathing in the wider community, and/or subject children to abuse.

Re Boazy's 'sabbatical' - it was for using one of his sockpuppet accounts while another was suspended, as I recall.

Al,
That's a new one on me, the eye of a needle thing and donkeys and rich men. didn't some pope once claim black men didn't have a soul all a matter of interpretation
For me I like this one:

Spectator: I think it was "Blessed are the cheesemakers".
Mrs. Gregory: Aha, what's so special about the cheesemakers?
Gregory: Well, obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.

Life of Brian 1979.

Oh dear, what a lot of white noise!

I missed whatever time bomb Foxy set off and have merely scanned through 4 pages of comments here, with too many to bother to respond to all at once.

But I like this one:

"Catholics have made some wonderful contributions to helping the Poor and lifting up those who are downtrodden. St Vinnies for one."

There are so many 'good folk' helping 'the poor folk' with largesse and noblesse oblige that one wonders why there are any 'poor folk' left.

But the truth is that people like Vinnie's have no desire to see the back of 'poor folk' because that would leave them with nothing to do, and no excuse for their tax-free status and dominant and privileged position in society.

If any of these so-called Christians were the least bit interested in ending poverty, then they'd start to educate 'the poor folk' into understanding why they were poor, and others were grossly and unseemingly rich, including all the so-called Christian churches.

But they do not want that, because power and poverty are in balance, for them.

As I recall the Vinnie mob they were/are part of the DLP wing of politics, supportuing the neo-fascist Santamaria with his hopes for a return to an agrarian based corporate state... which thankfully he never achieved.

Let us see them establish education centres, and feed the minds of the downtrodden with information and an understanding of why Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and other limpets live an exalted life of Riley, while the role of the 'poor folk' is to remain poor, to justify the lives of their 'betters'.

Did I see that hoary auld line somewhere when one responder asked if the nuns that had abused him were lined up with Jesus, and the acolyte responded with a "no... they were not 'real Christians'" or something along those lines?

Isn't that always the claim.... when a 'Christian' does something wrong, the believers denounce them as 'not being a real Christian'

There's more folks 1/2.

2/2
It's getting real hard to find a 'real Christian' anywhere, in fact... but they do say, 'it's so hard to get good help these days', don't they?

Unless, of course, a 'real Christian' is Tony Blair, or George Bush, or some other exalted person who hears voices in the night telling them where to take us all the next day?

But the acolyte did get one fact correct... the Church we see here on Earth, which is the only place it exists after all, is entirely manmade, and I use that phrase quite deliberately, because the women only managed to make the tea and sarnies while men built up this ridiculous and highly dishonest 'religious' empire of mind and place....although, unfortunately, according to the ABS stats, it is women who fall for it far more than men, who simply run it all.